GTC 2013: Hands-on with the NVIDIA Project Shield

NVIDIA’s Project Shield is one of the most exciting pieces of hardware that will be out this year, and the device was definitely one of the most popular products at this year’s GTC conference earlier this week.

Powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 4, the Shield is an insanely powerful device that is unlike anything on the market today. While you’ll have access to every application in the Google Play Store, including exclusive and optimized Tegra games, the Shield stands out with the ability to play games that are streamed from PCs that have Kepler GPUs. A PC utilizing one of the Kepler GPUs essentially acts as your very own NVIDIA Grid for your device.

Streaming games from the PC to the Shield shows no lag whatsoever, and it’s like you’ve installed the game directly onto the device. And while this feature alone makes the Shield something to be desired by gamers all around the world, it’s the inclusion of a full controller on the device that makes it the beast of a gaming machine that it is.

The Shield offers up a console-like gaming controller that’s attached to the 5-inch HD display. This will offer up a complete gaming experience that you can take with you at all times. Using the controller feels just like you’re holding a Xbox or Playstation controller, but it also has a few more options for volume control and back and home buttons for Android.

Overall, we’re very impressed with NVIDIA’s Project Shield. There’s currently nothing like it on the market, and while Sony has plans to push this sort of feature to the PS Vita, it’s simply not there yet. We’re more than excited for the Shield to be released, which we hope is sooner rather than later. In the mean time, I’ll be slowly upgrading all the components in my older computer tower, complete with Kepler GPU.

Gamers interested in the Shield : How much would you be willing to pay for one?